How a 50p levy raised nearly £58,000 for British game

A small levy with big impact

It appears on shoot invoices as a modest 50p per bird, but across a season and hundreds of shooting days, that sum accumulates into something rather more consequential. Across the 2025/26 season, Roxtons and sister company Ian Coley Sporting turned that levy into £57,900 for the Eat Wild campaign – £3,900 more than the year before.

The levy is, by Eat Wild’s own account, the development board’s primary source of income, the engine behind a campaign that has placed game on menus at Premier League stadiums, into supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Aldi and Lidl and onto the lunch tables of 32 children’s nurseries. On a 100-bird day split between eight guns, the levy amounts to just over six pounds each.

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Prize draw at Badminton Estate

Leon Challis-Davies, culinary director at Eat Wild and a regular ST columnist, visited the Roxtons offices in Hungerford last month to draw the winner of a 200-bird day at Badminton Estate in Gloucestershire, a prize draw offered by Roxtons as a thank-you to participating clients. The prize went to a Brian M.

“It’s so important we start building a future for British wild meat,” said Mr Challis-Davies. “The incredible amount raised is a testament to all those committed to making a difference.”

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Continuing into next season

Roxtons has confirmed the levy will run again in the 2026/27 season, with another Badminton day as the incentive.